Love in Hueco Mundo
by JuneiTheScerzo
Summary: Love is hard. But love in Hueco Mundo, among the Arrancars and pale desert sands, is harder. It takes courage, conviction, bravery, and tolerance to love. A series of Bleach couples oneshots, featuring all the Hueco Mundo cast. Rated T for language and sexual implications, among other things. Enjoy and request!


**Love is hard. But love in Hueco Mundo, among the Arrancars and pale desert sands, is harder. It takes courage, conviction, bravery, and tolerance to love. A series of Bleach couples oneshots, featuring all the Hueco Mundo cast. Rated T for language and sexual implications, among other things.**

**Okay, so here's what I've got planned so far.**

**IchiMoto**

**UlquiHime**

**NelNnoi**

**GrimmTier**

**If you have any more to suggest I write for, as long as it's got at least one member of the ship in Hueco Mundo and Co. I'm open to anything, even...dare I say it...yaoi and yuri... *what has I done***

**And now, with this off my chest, enjoy!**

**DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN BLEACH AT ALL. SADLY ENOUGH**

* * *

Love in Hueco Mundo

...

* * *

IchiMoto

...

* * *

"...Gin."

You startle yourself into an upright position before your head hits the table. Everything looks fuzzy, of course, but you don't remember it being this dark. All you can see is your reflection in the smooth dark glass console, with your silvery short hair obstructing your view just a little. Blinking dull lights flash beneath the glass, tracking the activities of all the Espada and Fracciónes. Were you dozing off again?

"I'm awake," you say, feeling the urge to yawn. But you hold it in so you don't look foolish, since Kaname Tôsen is staring at you from the doorway. Kaname doesn't appreciate levity at all, although he's honestly such a stiff and you really don't care what he thinks. He's always in your way, watching you like a hawk. An angry hawk.

The same voice lets out a sigh. "Gin, you were doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Thinking."

Thinking? You put a hand to your chin. Absurd, you weren't doing that. You don't like to think too hard about things, because they always lead to disappointment.

"You were just sitting there, observing the panels. You haven't talked or moved for the past hour. And I know you weren't sleeping."

"Says who? The blind guy?"

Kaname recoils, and part of you wants to do the same. That's not like you at all. You are a conniving, capricious little devil, that much is clear—but you don't flat-out jab at people's weak spots. That's not you, it's simply not clever enough. It doesn't injure just below the surface like you so enjoy. Instead, a wound like that cuts deep and rarely heals. You never act like this. What's happening?

"...If that's how you're going to act, then I suppose I was wrong in assuming this whole ordeal has matured you." He turns stiffly away.

"Forgive me, Kaname," you say quickly. "I don't know what came over me."

"Don't you?" he replies. It's so sudden, you have to think about whether or not he's right. Do you know what happened, to make you snap?

Oh.

You remember. Like a key in a lock, the answer slides into place.

That's right, you were thinking. About something—and someone—very important to you. Thinking about her tends to cause you to go into daydreaming mode.

...It had damn better not be tomorrow.

"Kaname, what's today's date?" you say, nonchalant only on the outside. On the inside, you are cold as the sky of no stars.

"Which calendar?"

"Which do you think?" you shoot back, emphasis on 'you', but not so much that you sound derisive.

Kaname's blind eyes behind their visor slide over yours. Is he trying to figure you out? It doesn't seem to be working too well, as he is shaking his head. He can't see the strange look you're giving him, a mixture of confusion, and hope. If he could, he'd say something different.

But instead he gives you the answer you've been dreading.

"The 28th of September."

28. 28 plus 1 is 29. Tomorrow is the 29th of September.

The hope within you dies and shatters.

Of course.

It's Rangiku's birthday tomorrow.

Immediately, your head is troubled. You feel like you need fresh air—of course, you are in Hueco Mundo, and here the fresh air is dry and reeks of death. No air will help you here.

You wish you could celebrate her special day with her. You miss her, the little orange-blonde girl with those lively blue eyes of hers. She isn't little anymore—rather, most men like her because she's not even remotely little in some areas. Not you. You like her for her personality, as averse and lecherous as you might seem.

And she...she is the love of your life. All you dream of at night is her smile as she balances a bottle of sake in one hand and a zanpakutô in the other. You would do anything for her, kill anyone, be anything.

In fact, your plan requires that you do all three. And it's all for her sake.

But no matter what you do, you still won't be able to see her. Ever again.

For now, that is how you think.

You look once more at your reflection and open your eyes a little more than they usually go. And you see her eyes, only paler blue and not anywhere near as bright. They are yours for now, until you can change them to be the happy eyes you want them to be. For now, you must not forget them. You must wear these false eyes as your own, at least for a little while. One day she'll see them too, the happy ones, the ones she hasn't seen in near two centuries.

You stand from your chair and paste on the smile with superglue. It is the one you always have on, just like those eyes of yours. The sneaky one that hides pain, anger, hatred, and love. The one that matches the squinty glare you hide the real you with. The one that nobody believes is lie, because it's so common to you that it's the only part of you they think they can figure out.

"I'm going for a walk," you say, and brush past Kaname silently with the fake smile on your face. He says nothing as you walk through the doorway and into the well-lit passages of Las Noches.

As soon as you are alone in the hall, you let your smile sink a little, so it's not as convincing but still looks like the you everyone expects. It's annoying, hurtful to keep up the half-smile half-frown, but you do it anyway. Again, you convince yourself that it is for her, because you know it is. You're not lying to yourself.

You're not.

You're not.

But you have to keep saying it, or you might start thinking you're wrong.

You head to your quarters at a speed between leisurely and urgent, your feet sliding over the spotless floors. It's so clean here, almost eerily so. Perhaps Ulquiorra is as impeccable as he is empty.

Every few minutes, you see a random Arrancar walk through the halls, and they say something anywhere from, "Oh, it's you," to, "Afternoon, Ichimaru-san," to, "Get the hell out of my way, you silver-haired fox-faced bastard!"

Ah. Grimmjow. For just an instant, your smile is real as the insult reminds you that they don't trust you. If the Espada don't trust you, then there's no way in hell that you're one of their comrades.

Wait. Something is different. Grimmjow has stopped. And you have too. He is facing you, blocking the way to your quarters.

His fist clenches as he speaks to you. "You piece of crap, what do you think you're doing?"

"Me? I'm taking a leisurely walk." Your lie is blatant, but he buys it like a toddler would candy in a sweet shop.

"What kind of crap is that? Shouldn't you be more concerned about the whole freaking Seireitei coming after you, instead of taking 'leisurely walks' around a palace that isn't even yours?!"

Ah, that's it. Appreciation is swelling inside you—if he had liked you, you wouldn't have felt like you were still who you think you are.

But Grimmjow is not a simple person, even a simple look at his bright blue hair and animal markings and Hollow mask reveals that. He takes appreciation as pity, and pity as a death sentence. You need him to think you don't like him, or he'll get really bad.

A snarl escapes from his mouth. "I hate your cocky attitude. Hate it, Ichimaru! No wonder you aren't welcome anywhere you go."

The insult brushes off you like a soft breeze. You walk a little closer to the wall and scoot past him. "You're in the way, Jaegerjaques."

Silently but deadly, he spins around with a kick that could take your face off.

You are unfazed, and you drop into a crouch on your toes, feeling the wind as his boot flies above your skull. In a fight, Grimmjow is only the Sexta. In a world where the lowest number is best, if he is six, then you are negative two. He is not a challenge to a leader of the Espada. A murderous glow is in his eyes though, one that doesn't necessarily comfort you. It bridges the strength gap.

The corners of your mouth turn down in a frown, the first time you'll wager Grimmjow has seen it. His eyes widen as his frown deepens. And he is too late to stop his next kick in coming.

The next time he swings for you, you leap over his blow, turn sharply, and slam your fist into his face as hard as you possibly can.

The battle is over before you even realize it happened. The strength gap is once again a mile wide.

You land on your toes and pull back from your battle position a bit shaken, and a whole lot more confused. You could have used Shinsô. In fact, Shinsô was closer to you than your fist was to him. Your zanpakutô could have easily humiliated Grimmjow into leaving you alone, but you hadn't let it. You had punched him as hard as you physically could without even truly understanding why. And this leaves you breathless, clueless, confused.

"I..." you begin to say, and then leave it at that. You are not smiling anymore. Your eyes are wide. And he sees them, and then oh god, you're so screwed, at least, you think. Does he see what you're really thinking?

Even with your difference in strength, the Sexta is not a pushover. Grimmjow only stumbles back a few steps, clutching his face in his hand and studying you warily between his fingers. He is still silent, but at this point you think it is shock.

Gin Ichimaru is not one to punch an Espada in the face.

Mumbling and swearing angrily to himself about his bruised nose, a flustered Grimmjow disappears in a blur of motion. You follow his example and shunpo down the halls at light speed, avoiding all contact until you are in the place you now call home.

Pleasantries aside, you ignore almost everything you see. Unlike all the others, you don't have your own palace. Seriously, though. Tôsen has a palace. Grimmjow has a palace. Harribel has a palace. You don't. Why? Just a small room to yourself—for reasons unexplained but you don't really mind. Perhaps it is because you're the youngest? Even some of the Espada are older than you. In fact, thinking hard enough, you may have just punched your elder.

Most Espada like to have lavish and extravagant palaces, or at least areas filled with the things that relate to them. Like Szayel having a laboratory, or Starrk having pillows everywhere, or Ulquiorra having an empty but large area for himself which he only frequents when he must sleep.

Your room is simple, not even that large. A single white table rests against the left wall, your simple small bed with one night table to the right, and a large window and balcony overlooking the inner palace on the far wall. Nothing is ultra extravagant. Nothing is extreme.

...Except the clutter on your desk.

Everything you liked from the Seireitei, you've been bringing it piece by piece to the palace. There are trinkets from Squad Three, your old squad, like your captain's haori. Right now, you're wearing a Hollow uniform, a white robe with a high collar that comes closed at the waist and flows down to the ground. You still wear your shihakushô underneath, despite the fact that you're really not supposed to. You don't care—Tôsen's doing it too and Aizen hasn't commented, so if Aizen doesn't care, then it's fine. Aizen probably "understands" the sentimental value of those robes, and yet he was the first to discard them, as though the Seireitei was nothing at all—not a home, a shelter, a place where they were welcome. The Arrancar robe's sleeves are long and wavy, they block your hands from view. They add to the illusion, because nobody sees your fist clench when you're a second away from blowing their fragile and empty bodies apart.

Your pointer from your attempted Arrancar Encyclopedia documentary series is somewhere buried under a pile of attempts at calligraphy that you've given up on. The Encyclopedia is just another act, a use of useless time that doesn't accomplish anything. Today, there will be nothing—not that your three or so viewers will be that disappointed. It is getting late by Seireitei time, and even if you were to make another episode, it wouldn't be seen for a while.

There's a bottle of water too—Hueco Mundo is the driest desert you've ever seen, so you got your own provisions. You greatly enjoy staying alive, and as a result of your desire to live there is water in your room. Aizen had the same idea in supplying water, transporting large amounts between Hueco Mundo and the Seireitei all at once without getting caught. And all just for his idiotic daily tea party with the Espada. No wonder most of them hate him. Although Grimmjow seems fine with the primary lack of water—perhaps it's his kitty reflexes?

There's a small laptop in the corner, inconspicuously covered by a white cloth so it doesn't get dirty. You use it to monitor the secret video cameras you installed throughout the entire palace as a side project. It helps you get your mind off of things and more relaxed. Sometimes your smile is real when you watch the day's footage, chuckling when you see all the weird things Arrancars do that make you feel so much more normal than you did in the Seireitei. Here everyone is a miserable scumbag, and you are just as bad of a scumbag. You fit right in.

A bag of dried persimmons—absolutely crucial. You love the dried fruit almost as much as her. In fact, the first thing you did when you met her was offer her a piece.

You begin to walk to the balcony, longing for a breath of air that doesn't smell of Hollows and the deceased, but then think better of it. You only have a little time left, not enough to sightsee. It is almost midnight, and you must be ready to leave Las Noches by then, so you can do what you must at the turn of day.

Under your desk is a bag, a small cloth sidebag that is already full. You prepared it a year ago for today, and the year before for last, and so on. It's special—it holds your reminders of her. You get on your knees and grab the bag in your hands, check that all the contents are there, and stand satisfied. But you grab an unopened bottle of sake from under the table and slip it wordlessly into your bag.

That done, you put the bag down on top of the table and check your computer's digital clock. 11:17 PM. Still have time to be miserable. Before you even realize, you've flopped down on your bed face-down and sighing.

Why is everything so agggghh? As weird as it is, the first thing you think is this. Why are you the one doing this? Why isn't it Tôsen or Ichigo—hell, he's probably already on his way here if you know anything about him—or Tôshirô or someone else that has to kill him?

The logical part of your brain replies, because you are doing it for Rangiku. It's not a question of who has the vendetta. You are the only one who can get revenge in Rangiku's stead, because you are so damn close. You must do it.

Damn everything to hell.

The emotional, lazy, adolescent side of you responds by rolling you out of bed, so you land very ungracefully on your side with a groan and pull yourself into a seated position against the wall.

11:46 PM. Time to go.

Your gaze travels to the small table at your side.

This is not really something to do when sober.

Realizing this, you reach up to grab a small bottle from atop your night table and, popping the top off of the small ceramic container, down the whole thing down your throat. Its taste stings your throat and warms your stomach, and then it burns, like wildfire but you don't really care, because you like it. The liquor feels like venom, and you are a snake. It courses through you as easily as would blood. You are the viper to the venom. That has a nice ring to it.

You look at the bottle's label after you've already taken in the whole thing. Sardonically enough, you wrote "strongest shit in Hueco Mundo" over whatever it said beforehand. That and "single shotglass weekly maximum" right below.

A few seconds after reading it, your vision grows blurred.

Whoops.

Well, since you're definitely not sober anymore, BS-ing Aizen should be simple enough.

Silently, you walk out the door and close it behind you. You're already too drunk to shunpo effectively—damn, it works fast—as your feet are already shuffling off-beat when you step. You decide on a brisk walk through the center of the hallway, since if you walk fast enough your momentum will carry you through and hide your stumble. See? You can still think. Even though you're pretty sure you don't like to do that.

Pretty sure. Don't remember. Your brain is one giant mush of sounds as of now. Your muscles no longer obey your commands—only a primal instinct and deepest urge to do what you are doing now keeps you moving in the direction you had planned.

Another group of Arrancars sees you as you pass them—a trio of girls this time. They giggle lightly when you pass, but you can tell from the way they glare at you that it doesn't mean anything good. Yes, they're laughing. They're laughing at the idea of you with your head smashed on a pike, with them drinking your blood as it drips. Gory girls, the lot of them. It's disturbing. Not a single Arrancar has a truly sensible mind, besides maybe numbers Cuatro through Primero. But that's good, for them at least—because flattering a drunk Gin Ichimaru can get you in more bad situations than a murderer caught on camera. Better they hate and fantasize of hate than they like.

At long last, or what you would have be long but was really less than a minute, you find yourself at the throne room of Las Noches. The doors from the throne room lead to the outside, no matter which path you take. Once you are out, you don't have to conform to the Hollow way. And what you plan will not be hindered.

Your pace quickens, despite your attempts at calming yourself. Why in hell are you so jumpy? All you're going to do is pay respect for a loved one's birthday. Nothing big.

And you've almost made it out those doors, almost let your hope grow that you can do this without any interaction with your boss, when he himself steps out from behind his throne and locks his stare on you.

Now there is no escaping.

"Gin."

The one word carries all the threat you need to stop moving.

You mask your drunken distrust and unease with a quiet "Oh?" and look over your shoulder, using the turn to hide your stagger. Your grip tightens ever so slightly on the satchel.

"Ahh, Aizen-taicho. Good evening."

"What are you doing with that bag, Gin?"

He's rather forward, isn't he.

"...Nowhere."

Crap. He knows you're drunk now, for sure. Your BS has failed with the first word uttered from your mouth.

But despite what you already know he knows, his response isn't incriminating. "...Need I repeat the question, Gin?" says Aizen with a smile quite unlike your own. It is so irrefutably evil, that look on his face. While yours is only sinister and concealing. Every time you see your own smile, you want to puke. But every time you see him, that sick smile, that horrible mask of regality that he uses to hide the callousness inside, you would very much like to reach out and strangle him. It would do you worlds of satisfaction.

But you can't. Because the same superglue that keeps your smile on your face holds your arms at your sides. It locks your feet in place and binds your soul to Hueco Mundo. Your allegiance is glued to Sôsuke Aizen and the Hollows, for as long as the glue will last. Even when you're drunk, the glue will hold, and you highly doubt it'll ever break.

When the shadow leaves your soul, you turn away from him with a chuckle, masking a hiccup with your trademark laugh. "No worries, Aizen-taicho. It's just a breath of fresh air for a lonely captain."

"With a suspicious satchel."

"With personal effects," you correct.

Aizen looks about to speak, then chuckles as well and turns away. "Very well. But do be careful out there, Gin."

The way he says it is clearly a threat. Come back soon or I will be forced to retrieve you like the hapless, drunken, miserable fool of a child you are. You know he hates you, and you figure he can see through you right now, but it angers you nonetheless. The tone infuriates you, so much, you just want to…

No, you tell yourself, widening your serpentine smile. Superglue. "Of course."

"And no alcohol outside the palace, Gin."

"What makes you think I have alcohol in me?" you reply with only the barest of slurs—even Nnoitra himself has had to admit that you can damn well hold your liquor when you need to. Even when it is the strongest shit in Hueco Mundo. You're lucky to get off with blurred vision and a stagger—Starrk once tried a little too much of one of your drinks and didn't wake up for a week.

And apparently, Aizen remembers that experiment. It's evident in his glare. "It would be embarrassing if I had to make you take a sobriety test to prove the truth."

"True. But I wouldn't lie to you like that," you say, still smiling. "Besides, Kyôka Suigetsu could confuse my results any day."

It's true. His zanpakutô could mess up your perception of a test easily. You think that's the answer he wants. You're not sure—although it's not like you really care right now. See, if you were sober right now, your conscience and nerves would be controlling you in this situation, not your motives. Your motives are driving you right now, to do what in any other case would be suicide.

"...Mm."

Eyes narrowed in well-founded suspicion, Aizen walks away, leaving the throne room entirely. And you, clutching the satchel in your hand, rush towards the doors much faster than before with the slightest of staggers in your step.

You push through them easily, almost losing your balance as you forgot just how light they are. You haven't been to the palace in a little while, but it's been long enough that you don't remember many details about Las Noches. All you remember is that "out" and "forward" mean the same thing here. Go forwards and you'll reach an exit.

And reach the exit you do. After only a few minutes of brisk walking, you find yourself at a small, unimpressive door. Most people would mistake it for a maintenance hatch or the like. But you know that it isn't what it seems because you can just barely see the impressive yet invisible kido barriers surrounding the frame. Aizen clearly doesn't want people leaving. Doesn't matter. You're not that great with kido, but you don't have to be a master to break it.

Your free hand—the one not clutching the satchel like you're afraid of pickpockets—reaches down to your waist for Shinsô and unsheathes the awkwardly short blade. One simple backhanded slash cleaves through the kido barriers like an arrow would air, and you put the weapon away before any scanners pick up your spiritual pressure.

The door swings fully open with a creak, and you get a burst of fresh(ish) air to the face. But you don't get distracted—rather, you focus harder on staying sensate long enough to get away from the palace. Odd, you don't remember there being wind outside. The desert is dry and windless, so the air burst must have been caused by pressure differences.

You don't care if your shunpo is effective or not out here—you just want to be far, far away from the palace. It's enormous, no matter where you are in relation to it. You've seen before that you can run towards it from miles away, and it won't change in appearance of size until you're practically right in front of it. It's crazy, and with that craziness it brings a sort of impending doom. Seeing that building reminds you how mortal you are—even if you live forever, the stalwart and enormous palace of Las Noches will outlast you by ten times your lifespan. Nothing can bring the incredible Las Noches down.

But you can bring down its leader.

You use your fastest possible shunpo for a solid four minutes straight, which puts you at a distance of ten or eleven solid miles away. They'll have a lot of trouble finding you here.

Right. Where is it? There was...

There.

You stop speeding and slow to a respectful walk as you approach your destination. Hueco Mundo is littered with these odd treelike crystal structures, and this one in particular is one of the largest ones, looming high above your head.

You shrug the bag off your shoulder and sit cross-legged at the base, your gaze traveling up the trunk of the tree to see the crescent moon high above. Your fingers reach up and slowly, gently, move over the bag, like touching it is a capital offense, and then slip under the flap and pull it open.

Everything inside is just how you left it. First you take out the bottle of sake, popping off the cork and taking yet another gulp of liquor before placing the bottle down in the sand. It's a precautionary thing—the stuff from earlier has quite a punch but doesn't last long. This is something you fear doing, but you must do it anyway, so might as well do it under influence.

Then you reach into the bag for a flower. It wasn't easy to find a flower in the worlds of spirits. Hueco Mundo is a dead world—and stealing a flower from Seireitei and keeping it alive for months is harder than you may think. You've had to water it every day, so there goes half your water rations. But it's fine, since you don't need to water it anymore. Contrary to everything that any decent botanist would tell you a flower requires, you place the small cut stem of the flower into the bottle. There's a strange sound when the edge of the stem enters the sake, like a little energetic shiver, but you ignore it.

Rangiku would like this. And therefore, you are doing it.

And last, you take out the most important item you placed in that bag—a picture of Rangiku herself.

It's barely been a month since you last saw her, but seeing an image of her is still quite a shock to you. You can never forget her face, that much is true, but you're quite surprised by her appearance. Of course, it's an old one, before her old captain of Squad Ten left her. Her hair is still cropped short, framing her face with close-cut golden orange curls, and she's still much taller than you remember. Of course, you're one of the tallest guys you know of, and you dwarf her, but still, she's taller than the average girl. That was somewhere around twenty years ago, before she started wearing her signature pink scarf around her arms instead of her neck. Too bad, though—she looked good back then. Hell, she's always been beautiful. You've loved her ever since you found her, alone, in the middle of the forest on a cold dark night with nothing but a dying glow in her eyes. She is your Venus, your goddess, your only true thing that you care about in this world.

You love her, undyingly. Neverendingly. Always.

Staring at the picture has stopped you from doing what you planned. Snapping yourself out of this daze, you decide to place the piece of paper at the base of the tree facing you. The bottle, still in your other hand, is placed on one corner of the picture, holding it down in case a chance breeze will take it away. The flower is a pale lavender at the tips of the petals, white at the center and in a beautiful contrast with her hair.

Unwillingly, your hand travels to Shinsô and unsheathes the blade. You hold it out at the side, the blade, reflecting your thin gaze back ya you.

You stare at it for a few seconds, unsure of what to say or do now, and that's when it hits you.

All of a sudden, everything at once overwhelms you. You see the picture propped up against the tree, and you see the flower, and you see the small bottle that the flower is placed within—and coupled with the liquor in your veins, oh god, suddenly you can't choke everything down anymore.

One knee at a time, you fall to the desert sands, your eyes wide and lightless.

Because all you see, no matter where you look or even if you close your eyes, is her. Her laughing, her crying. Her sorrow, her joy. You hate when she cries. It rips at your soul. She has cried before. Your soul is in shreds.

And you made her cry again. You did it. You defected to the Hollows. You are one of their allies now. At least, that's what she thinks. Is your soul even there anymore to be torn asunder?

You know for a fact that she cried. She didn't want you to go. She wanted you to prove that you were still a good guy, still the good guy who saved her life and whisked her away from the hell she escaped.

And you wanted to, oh, how you wanted to cry out to her as you were leaving the Seireitei for the last time. How you wanted to scream that you weren't going to leave her, and that soon you'd come back to her. How you wanted to promise that you were hers forever and always, and then some.

But. All for the act, you had to lie. You will have to keep lying. And you can't stop until Aizen is dead. Then, if she'll even be able to stand the sight of you, you can tell her the truth and why you did it the way you did.

Except she will never really know how much she meant to you, because you never really said you were sorry.

Look how well it all turned out.

You're a f**king mess.

Shinsô falls from your hands soundlessly, the blade sticking in the sand about six inches deep at an angle. With it falls each and every barrier you have put up, one by one, like bakudo walls that weren't strong enough to keep the demons away.

Your bury your head in your hands, and you start to do that goddamn thinking thing again.

Rangiku, oh, my god, Rangiku, I am so, so sorry.

I don't wanna do this to you. I didn't. I still don't.

I have to, though. Gotta. I'll end him. For you. No matter the cost.

As long as I'm alive, Aizen will never hurt you again, I swear it for you.

Happy birthday.

Not much longer now.

Rangiku. Please, please don't hate me.

Please.

For the next hour, your tears water the sands of Hueco Mundo.

Grimmjow finds you a few hours later, broken and wordless and tearless and silent, but you are too shaken to acknowledge his presence. Kami alone knows what he is doing here. Perhaps he came to add to your torment. It is like him. Or perhaps Aizen sent him. It's like him too.

He walks up to your little setup with a scoff. "You really are something messed up, Gin."

You do not acknowledge him. At this moment, you, a no-longer-crying, shellshocked, tear-stained, murderous and vengeful failure prodigy child, are below him right now in more ways than one. And he knows this.

"You know, it'll be a whole lot more fun if I just leave you here."

After one more look at you and a sneer, he roughly kicks the bottle over and sonídos away, leaving you alone without a sound as the alcohol blurs the pigments of the paper and erases her smile from the photograph. The sand smells of sake and death.

A decision is made.

You will never speak of this again. And if you do, it will be Rangiku who starts the conversation.

Because a boy can dream.

Even if, deep down inside, he is part snake.

...

* * *

**I hope you liked this chapter! It won't be very frequent or long, but I will post more in the relatively near future. UlquiHime next, to be specific. Again, read, review, follow, whatever you decide, and if you have an idea leave it in the reviews. Until then, ciao!**


End file.
